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Evonik UK Holdings Limited v The Commissioners of Inland Revenue [2025]

07/11/25

When money is paid under an order, and the order is subsequently set aside, what rights does the payor have against the payee? That question was the core of the issue in Evonik UK Holdings Limited v The Commissioners of Inland Revenue [2025] EWCA Civ 1392.

Evonik sought and obtained summary judgment against HMRC in 2016 on a set of causes of action. Those causes of action were premised upon the House of Lords’ decision in Sempra Metals v IRC [2007] UKHL 34. The House of Lords’ decision was overruled in Prudential Assurance Company Ltd v HMRC [2018] UKSC 39. And the summary judgments were then set aside by the Supreme Court in Test Claimants in the FII Group Litigation v HMRC [2021] UKSC 31.

After the Supreme Court’s decision, a hearing before Richards J (upheld on appeal to the Court of Appeal) established that Evonik’s claims—on the causes of action that were the subject of the summary judgment application and other causes of action—were in time.

The sums HMRC paid under the summary judgment order exceeded the proper quantification of those claims, in light of the law as stated in Test Claimants in the FII Group Litigation v HMRC [2021] UKSC 31. Yet Evonik’s claims under all its causes of action exceeded the sums paid under the summary judgment order. What should the Court rule in respect of the sums paid in 2016?

At first instance, Richards J held that the proper approach was to allocate the sums paid in 2016 to Evonik’s claims (as established after the Supreme Court’s decision) as they stood in 2016. He applied the sums to Evonik’s claims to interest first, thus denying HMRC any award of interest for the sums wrongfully paid under the order.

HMRC appealed. The Court of Appeal considered that the proper approach was, instead, to ask whether HMRC was entitled to interest when the orders in question were set aside. Relying upon decisions including Delta Petroleum (Caribbean) Ltd v British Virgin Islands Electricity Corporation [2020] UKPC 23, it held that a litigant had no entitlement to interest when an order was set aside; the question, instead, was “what justice requires”. On the facts of this case, it held that justice did not require an award of interest.

The Judgment can be found here.

Frederick Wilmot-Smith was instructed by HMRC for the Court of Appeal hearing.

All members of Brick Court Chambers are self employed barristers. Any views expressed are those of the individual barristers and not of Brick Court Chambers as a whole.